Loish

STYLE Q&A // part 2

Hey everyone! Here’s the second video of the style Q&A! Part 1 is here.

Topics I cover in this video are:

• Copying styles - whether that’s ok and how to approach it, and also some more about “style insecurity” that I talked about in the last video.

• Ways to improve your style if you don’t like it

• My opinion on the “it’s my style” ...

STYLE Q&A // part 1

Here’s part 1 of the Q&A session on artistic style! In this one I talk mostly about my own journey and approach. I talk about how my style changed over time, turning points in the development of my style, and my artistic inspirations.

List of the inspirations I talk through:

• Alfonse Mucha / Art Nouveau: http://www.muchafoundation.org/en

• JC Leyendecker: 2021-05-21 08:40:54 +0000 UTC View Post

EARLY ACCESS // cats

Some cat sketches! Drew them from reference first, and then made some stylized sketches immediately afterwards. I always think it’s interesting to see how my creative choices are different when I’m aiming for something slightly more cartoony!

By the way, I finished recording the style Q&A earlier today and will be posting it as soon as the captions are in, so probably early next week! It ended up being two hours long haha, I am terrible at keeping things to the point. I think yo...

EARLY ACCESS // electric

A new painting! This is was a WIP that I made on my ipad which I had lying around for years! I finally decided to pick it up again. I was still drawn to the weird electric-ish vibes that the sketch had! I just love bright violet combined with grey tones. I included the original rough sketch in the post as well. Hope you guys like!

STYLE Q&A // share your questions with me!

Hey guys! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I mentioned last month that I'd love to do a Q&A session with you all about artistic style. What would you like to know about this topic from me? It can be about my own style, or style in general. I'd love to hear your questions! 

You can post them below, send them in a private message here on patreon, or email them to me at loishh@gmail.com! I will probably do the Q&A session on thursday, so please send over your question before...

EARLY ACCESS // food

I rarely draw things that don’t have a face, so I figured it was time try that again. Here’s some random food from my camera roll! Tried to push the colors a bit to get a bright and sunny vibe.

TUTORIAL // sketching hands & feet

Here it is: this month’s tutorial! It’s on sketching hands and feet, and talks mostly about how I break them down into basic shapes and how I convey foreshortening. I’m pretty lazy about getting the details right, as long as the shape and gesture are working! If you want to practice drawing hands and feet, I really recommend the Adorkastock reference packs that she put together a while back and which I used in this tutorial as wel!

Here’s the feet pack: 2021-05-11 09:17:19 +0000 UTC View Post

EARLY ACCESS // sketch session

Here’s the result of a sketch session where I challenged myself to draw a little faster than I usually do. I also did a thing that I find super difficult and terrifying: drawing with solid lines, without establishing the basic shapes with a soft pencil brush first. Just going straight into it and committing to the lines I draw. It’s very counter-intuitive for me!

In general with sketches like these, I feel like the more detail I add, the less interesting the sketch becomes. On the o...

LECTURE // using social media to generate income

Last month I did a lecture for the Wacom career days event! It was on using social media to generate income, and gives tips on building a solid social media strategy as well as ways that you can try and generate some income from your social media presence. I’m uploading it here for you guys, and it also has captions in case you prefer that! It was a livestream session so there's some sponsorship stuff at the beginning you can skip through, as well as some Q&A at the end. I hope you guys...

UPDATE // it's gonna be MAY!

The time has come for this obnoxious meme, once again:

One of my favorite months ~ hoping for lots of sun and warmth like last year! Here’s a quick review of how this month went for me:

LECTURES & DEMOS

This patreon is turning more and more into an archive of resources! There’s 11 tutorials by now, plus a bunch of walkthroughs and tips. I’ve decided to als...

EARLY ACCESS // line sketches

I usually go from sketch straight to color, and don’t spend as much time on the linework as I used to. For these sketches I wanted to push myself to focus more on that linework, and try to get that linework to really move with the shapes and forms of the pose. I’m such a fan of painting and adding color that it’s hard for me to just stick to black & white, but I enjoyed drawing these! Reference from the amazing Adorkastock, and I used my favorite brush for this one - the Macalabs HB...

PROCESS VIDEO // mountain, part 3

Here’s the final part of the mountain painting process! The other parts are here and here. This one is sped up to 200%, just like the last video - you can slow it down or speed it up with the gear button on the pl...

PROCESS VIDEO // mountain, part 2

Here’s part 2 of the mountain painting process! You can find part 1 here! This one is sped up to twice the original speed. It picks up where I left off: trying to decide how I was going to add a more magical element to this painting. At the beginning, I was thinking of a kind of transparent ‘wormhole’ e...

PROCESS VIDEO // mountain, part 1

I put together a process video for my mountain painting that I posted earlier this month! I was kind of shocked to discover that I had only spent about 6 hours on the whole thing. I usually spend much longer on a digital painting, especially ones featuring an environment or setting. I guess this one went a lot quicker than usual because I’ve been doing a lot more environment work in the last year! 2021-04-27 09:36:41 +0000 UTC View Post

EARLY ACCESS // plants

I was going through a bit of a rough patch a few days ago (some health issues with my family that are now resolved!) and decided to sit down and draw some house plants to try and relax. I think I find it soothing because plants don’t have a face or expression so you can take some liberties with the proportions and stylization, and plants themselves are just so.. calming? They’re always there, just surviving. They're like gentle witnesses to our lives. So here are some house plant doodles ...

TUTORIAL // drawing clothes

It’s time for this month’s tutorial, which is on drawing clothes! I focused on two main aspects: how to convey clothes in a believable way (especially the folds, volumes and detail density), and how to apply those principles to drawing clothing from the imagination. I talk a little bit about some character design principles too. I will be making a separate tutorial on painting and rendering clothes in the future, since that is a huge challenge on its own! For now, I hope you guys enjoy th...

EARLY ACCESS // jump

Here’s a mix between a study and an imaginary painting! I also included the ref so you can compare. I wanted to capture the feeling of looking at a beautiful sunset as the days get longer and the weather gets warmer.. that energy and joy and feeling of freedom. Basically an exercise in getting inspiration from daily life :) Even though my daily life is so boring right now, it’s these small moments that have so much impact.

EARLY ACCESS // expressions

Some expression studies! I always wanna go super cartoony when I draw expressions, because I always feel like the more realistic the art gets, the more you get into a kind of uncanny valley zone where the expression is more difficult to read. So with these I wanted to challenge myself to stay in a more realistic zone than I’m comfortable with and see if I can still capture that intensity. Hope you like them!

DEMO // pixelatl festival

Here's a demo I did quite a while back, for an event called Pixelatl! It was recorded by them and the interent was not always great so there's a bit of a lag, but I figured it might be interesting for those of you who want to see a more general overview of my process! It touches on a lot of topics in the tutorial videos but is more focused on the overall workflow. I ended up rendering the chracter I drew here further, here's the finished version:

2021-04-09 11:14:18 +0000 UTC View Post

EARLY ACCESS // mountains

I finally got around to finishing the mountainscape WIP that I posted back in January! I’ve been reading this amazing book called The Fifth Season that involves a lot of magic rock-moving powers, and that inspired me to add some of that mood to this painting. I included some close-ups and the original WIP image. Hope you guys like it!

UPDATE // Spring is officially here!

It's the last day of March! The difference between last month and today is enormous. Last month it was cold and rainy, today the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the first fluffly green leaves are growing. I'm so excited to spend more time outside and to finally wear some lighter spring coats for once, haha. Here's a little review of how this month has gone for me:

MIXED BAG

I feel like my art this month has been a mix of all sorts of different moods an...

EARLY ACCESS // heads

Head sketches! Something I always return to after a while, I just love drawing faces. For these I wanted to push the volumes a bit and get a more squishy 3D feel with the exaggerated lighting and colors. Hope you guys like!

EARLY ACCESS // stylization studies

This year I’m going to be working on my third artbook, which will be about my style. Since I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot, I decided to do a study where I draw the same reference photo in different levels of stylization. The first is more ‘realistic’ and the one on the right is more stylized and exaggerated. I think it’s interesting to see which elements become more emphasized, and which ones fall away when artists stylize a subject. It’s such an interesting topic. Mayb...

EARLY ACCESS // balcony

An environment speedpaint! Thinking about sunny mornings on green balconies. I have a backyard now but balconies were my only ‘outside area’ for the last 10 years. I love how cosy and private they can be.

TUTORIAL // making your sketch presentable

Here it is: this month’s tutorial! It’s on making your sketch presentable. Basically, if you have a rough sketch and not a whole lot of time to wrap it up, what are some ways you can make some quick and efficient modifications so that it’s good to post, share, or send out to your client? I also talk a bit about how you can present your rough work in an appealing way simply by adding a background color, tweaking the colors, or adding a signature.

I also talk a bit about using masks...

EARLY ACCESS // tutorial 10

Hey guys! Just a quick message to let you guys know that I'm almost done with this month's tutorial, which is about making your sketches presentable in a quick & efficient way. This is the end result of the tutorial ~ the second image is the rough sketch and the first one is the 'presentable' sketch! I'll show you how I got from point A to point B in the tutorial, but first I have to render it out and get some captions made. You'll see it posted next week! For now, have an amazing weekend...

EARLY ACCESS // overcast skies

I’ve been hiking a lot this winter, and seen a lot of this kind of view: heather fields with overcast skies. It’s typical dutch nature during this time of year. Here are some quick studies, in which I played around with textured brushes to get the clouds right. There’s also some close-ups and the original ref photos!

EARLY ACCESS // factory

Here’s a painting in a style that I hadn’t explored in a long time! I am fascinated by post-apocalyptic stories, but I’m not big on drawing violence/zombies/monsters in my own art, so I want to explore a post apocalyptic world that is more soft and gentle in nature. Maybe this will be part of a series. I referenced a lot of abandoned factories and refineries for this one. Hope you like it!

PROCESS // pink fish, part 3

Here is the final part of the process for my veiltail painting! Part 1 is here and part 2 is here. 

This is the part where I just smooth things out and add the final pass of detail. I sped it up to 3x the original speed, so in real life I took about 3 and a half hours to do this part. I always fee...

PROCESS // pink fish, part 2

Here's part 2 of the process for my veiltail painting! Part 1 is here. 

The second part of this process is sped up to twice the original speed. This is because I figured out the general look and feel for the painting, and am mostly rendering / finalizing the creative decisions I made earlier! In real life, this part of the process took about 2 hours.

In this video you mainly see me t...